| Project title | Translating Frequencies:639 |
| Location | All Saints’ Church, Calbourne, Isle of Wight |
| Date | 5th July 2025 |
Artist Statement
My practice explores the intersection of sound, vibration, and site-specificity to create immersive environments that engage both body and mind. Drawing from concepts of deep listening, acoustic ecology, and sensory integration, I use field recordings, harmonic composition, and adapted audio technologies to invite participants into a state of heightened presence.
In Translating Frequencies:639, I transformed the 12th-century All Saints’ Church in Calbourne into a sonic sanctuary. By combining subwoofer-driven low frequencies, a custom-built vibrational vest, spatial sound design, and subtle sensory elements such as a grounding mat and ceremonial Kyphi scent, the work aimed to harmonise with the site’s acoustic and energetic character.
My intention is not only to immerse but to shift awareness by encouraging deeper self-connection through the dissolution of ordinary sensory boundaries. Each project becomes a dialogue between place, technology, and the human body, asking how sound can be felt as much as it is heard, and how it can act as a catalyst for personal and collective transformation.
Contextual Statement
Translating Frequencies:639 is a site-specific, one-person immersive sound installation created for All Saints’ Church, Calbourne, as part of the IW Biosphere Festival. The work invites participants to sit in the historic 12th-century Rector’s Chair, positioned near the altar, while wearing a bespoke vibrational vest. Surrounding them, subwoofers and full-range speakers emit a multi-layered soundscape composed around the 639 Hz frequency, associated with the heart meridian, and enriched with field recordings from the church and its grounds. This creates a sonic field where listening extends beyond hearing into deep physical and emotional resonance.
The installation is informed by acoustic ecology, site-responsive practice, and the concept that place and sound can act as co-creative agents. The church’s unique acoustics, historic significance, and geomantic ley line alignment played an integral role in shaping the work, transforming it into more than an installation, it became a space of contemplation, sensory immersion, and connection.
Artist influences include Francisco López and Matt Parker, whose work with environmental and infrastructural recordings reveals hidden sonic layers of place, and Lucy Lippard’s idea of overlay, in which historical, ecological, and spiritual narratives are revealed through sensory engagement. By combining these ideas with the archaic atmosphere of the church, Translating Frequencies:639 sought to bridge the layers of medieval architecture, contemporary soundscape, and the timeless human experience of listening.
Presented both in-person and as an online immersion, the project allowed for wide engagement and highlighted the potential for sound art to activate heritage spaces in new ways. Its inclusion in the IW Biosphere Festival connected it to a wider conversation about the intersection of art, ecology, and community.
Translating Frequencies:639 Soundscape Immersion (7 mins)
This video presents the immersive soundscape composed for Translating Frequencies:639, blending field recordings from All Saints’ Church, harmonic synthesis around 639 Hz, and layered vibrations to create a meditative sonic environment. Developed as part of a site-specific installation, the work invites deep listening and embodied awareness through sound.
This video contains instructions to experience the immersion in your chosen location.
Translating Frequencies:639 Live Event Video (4 mins)
This video documents the live installation at All Saints’ Church, Calbourne, during the IW Biosphere Festival. It captures the immersive experience as participants engaged with the resonant soundscape and atmospheric church setting, offering a glimpse into the profound experiences the work evoked.
Translating Frequencies:639 Creative Process Video (4 mins)
This video traces the development of the project, combining footage of field recordings, sound testing at Widget Productions, and on-site preparations in the church. With audio captured from the process itself, it offers insight into how the immersive soundscape and installation were created.
Artist’s view of immersed participants
“To translate, is always to make some kind of difference, in short, to effect something, to have an effect, to cause something.”
– Timothy Morton
Special thanks to: Falmouth University, All Saints’ Church Calbourne, Widget Productions, IW Biosphere Festival, Pete Johnstone (photographer), Prilly Lewis (textile artist), and all my fellow peers in the Peter Doigs cohort.